Adding another Solr server and Solr node

You can add an extra Solr server to your distributed deployment example. This section describes the process of creating a new Docker container that represents the extra Solr server, and adding a Solr node on that server to the existing Solr collection.

Before you begin

Create a directory named solr3 in the src/images/common directory, and copy the contents of the src/images/common/solr directory into the new solr3 directory.

Modifying the Dockerfile

In the Docker environment, create another container to represent the extra server. The new container is a copy of the Solr container, which is modified to use a different host name and port.

Modify the Dockerfile in the src/images/common/solr3 directory to specify the host name and port to expose:

Set the ARG instruction to ARG hostname=solr3.eianet.
This is the host name of the new container.

Set the EXPOSE instruction to EXPOSE 8985.
This is the port that is exposed to enable a connection the Solr web UI.

Adding the Solr node to the topology.xml

Modify the topology.xml in the src/images/common/solr3/configuration/environment directory to include the new host name and ports that are specified in the Dockerfile.
Add the following <solr-node> element as a child of the <solr-nodes> element:

<solr-node memory="512m" data-dir="/opt/i2/i2analyze/data/solr" host-name="solr3.eianet" id="node3" port-number="8985"/>

Make the same modification to the topology.xml in the src/configuration/environment directory to ensure that the configuration is consistent.

Build and create the Solr container

Build the Solr image, run the following command from the src/images/common folder:

docker build -t solr3_image solr3

The Solr image is created with the name solr3_image. Inspect the Dockerfile in the src/images/common/solr3 directory to see the commands that are required to configure the Solr server.

Run the Solr3 container:

docker run -d --name solr3 -p 8985:8985 --net eianet --memory=2g -u i2analyze solr3_image

Check that the container started correctly by using the docker logs:

docker logs -f solr3

The image includes the topology.xml file that you modified, and defines the values for the configuration of the new Solr node. When the server starts, the new Solr node is created on the new server.

When you start the Solr container, the port that Solr runs on in the container is specified. The specified port is mapped on the host machine so that you can access Solr and the Solr Web UI from the host machine.

After the Solr node is running, you can use the Solr Web UI to inspect the configuration. Connect to the Solr Web UI on the solr container. In a web browser, go to the following URL to connect to the Solr Web UI: http://localhost:8983/solr/#. The user name is solradmin and the password is the Solr password set in the credentials.properties file.

What to do next

After you create the Solr node, you can configure your Solr collection to use the new node by adding a shard or replica to the node. For more information, see Adding Solr shards to your deployment, and Adding Solr replicas to your deployment.